Monday, September 29, 2014

Interior Minister
Rodríguez Torres declared
yesterday that he is “sure that all the Venezuelan right had knowledge of
the terrorist plans by Lorent Gómez Saleh.”

Rodriguez Torres did
not provide any evidence for this claim during a televised interview with José
Vicente Rangel, but explained that he was convinced the opposition new of the
plans because “It is the highest phase of the struggle of Venezuela’s fascism,
it is something that goes beyond the guarimbas.
That is where the actions of the right were aiming at.”

According
to the Minister the opposition was planning a “surprise” after the violent protest
in the beginning of this year: “I believe this was the surprise they were
planning, they were going to [unleash] armed terrorist cells.”

“A serious opposition,
one that acts politically and that really wanted to become an option for the
country, would have immediately rejected the terrorist plans by Gómez Saleh.
But we haven’t seen this. I am sure that all of the opposition knows what he
[Saleh] was up to,” reiterated Rodríguez Torres.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

The series of videos
of the now jailed student leader Lorent Gómez Saleh is the closest Interior
Minister Rodríguez Torres has come to showing evidence of somebody actually conspiring
against the Venezuelan government.

In
the videos Saleh makes claims of contacts with the Colombian Army and of
plans to buy weapons, including sniper rifles and explosives, to use them in
the “armed struggle” against the Venezuelan government. Part of Saleh’s bizarre
plan, according to his own declarations in one of the videos, was the violent
occupation of Táchira State’s “banks and liquor stores.”

The government is now
in the process of linking Saleh with opposition leaders. Minister Rodríguez
Torres and National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello explained
this week that they are convinced the videos are evidence of a wider
conspiracy by the opposition to destabilize the country.

Cabello declared: “We
have stopped a conspiracy plot very well planned by the right. (…) The
opposition knows nothing of love and care. The revolutionaries will always
defend the legacy and the love of Chávez. The opposition continues to conspire
through different forms of irrational struggle against the constitutional
government. (…) Today we are again revealing to the country the intentions of a
terrorist and irresponsible right. The opposition has made a fool of us all
with its conspiracies and now they tried to destabilize [the country] using
Saleh.”

Rodríguez
Torres said he will soon show another video revealing “all the dark side,
all the connections of Álvaro Uribe with drug trafficking, with the paramilitaries,
with crime.”

Opposition leaders
have rejected links with Lorent Saleh. Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma admitted
he had met Saleh before, but denied this meant he knew about his plans. “If
these things are true they are indefensible. Who could defend something so
removed from common sense? We are far from [supporting] terrorist and coup plans,”
Ledezma
declared.

Monday, September 22, 2014

President Maduro has
informed that experts form different parts of the world, including Cuban
experts in bacteriological warfare, have arrived in the Venezuela to
investigate recent
events at Maracay’s Central Hospital.

“There is an
international war, compañeros,
compatriots, a war waged by people who are trying to bring Venezuela down to its
knees. But they will not achieve [their purposes], (…) we have defeated this psychosocial
war that they have waged. [They] have made up a sickness in Venezuela, and we
are investigating this. Doctors, friends from all over the world have arrived,
including from our sister country Cuba, which has sent experts in
bacteriological warfare in order to determine what is it the fascist right tried
to do in Maracay,” explained
Maduro.

The President also claimed victory in several
wars he claims are being waged against the country by its enemies: “Bacteriological
war, psychological war, international financial war: No and No again! Venezuela
is a solid country in all aspects of its social, economic, political, and financial
life.”

Thursday, September 18, 2014

On
September 11, the president of the Colegio
de Médicos of Aragua, Ángel Sarmiento, informed that 8 patients at the Central
Hospital of Maracay had died of an unknown disease. Sarmiento spoke of an "unidentified virus or bacteria."

The PSUV governor of
Aragua, Tarek El Aissami, was quick to deny the existence of a “supposed
bacteria at the Central Hospital of Maracay.” Instead he accused Sarmiento of
being the leader of “a campaign of rumors and terrorism.”

President Maduro declared
today that the whole episode was part of an international media campaign of “psychological
warfare,” against the Venezuelan people. CNN en español, BBC, NTN24, and the
Miami Herald were all mentioned by Maduro as part of this campaign to psychologically
“poison Venezuelans.”

But according to Maduro,
there may be an even more sinister plot behind the media campaign: “We have a
line of research now, because we seriously suspect that the Right was trying to
introduce some kind of virus, a bacteriological warfare, into the Maracay
Hospital, or who knows where else, and for that they already had prepared the
[media] campaign, the videos, who was going to declare, but that campaign fell
through in empty space,” said
the President.

To develop this “line
of research” into the plot, Maduro announced that he will ask for the assistance
of international medical organizations, including the World Health
Organization, “because this was an attack against the Venezuelan health system,”
he added.

Interior Minister Miguel
Rodríguez Torres presented
a second video of Lorent Gómez Saleh, an opposition student activist who
was recently deported from Colombia and handed to Venezuelan authorities. In the videos, Gómez Saleh brags about having contacts with the Colombian Army and
of having secured arms (fusiles) to
start an insurrection in Venezuela. He also expresses the need to “take over”,
and even blow up, liquor stores, banks and the local elections authorities’
offices of the frontier State of Táchira.

For Rodríguez Torres
the videos show more than the confessions of an extremist activist, they are
irrefutable evidence that the opposition is planning “terrorist actions against
the Venezuelan people.”

The Minister said
that investigations by Venezuela’s security agencies have determined that Gómez
Saleh has links with “activists of the extreme right, such as María Machado and
Leopoldo López.” Other links include Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe, and
even the Colombian Catholic Church: “We have determined that this young man has
links with the Church in Colombia, with two deputies well known in the country,
who precisely made the link with Uribe. We have no doubt that Lorent is a pupil
of Álvaro Uribe Vélez.”

“We are putting together
the puzzle of the conspiracy and insurrectional actions that we already wittnessed
with the guarimbas, and that they are
now trying to revive,” said Rodríguez Torres.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The National
Assembly, with the majority votes of the pro-government parties, has agreed to
support the measures taken by Maduro against the “Economic War” he claims is
being waged against the country by the Empire and the local “extreme right”.

Ricardo Sanguino,
PSUV representative for Táchira, explained
that “the Revolution has been the target of these actions since 1999, but
lately it has also faced a Fourth Generation War, (…) an Economic War, which is
yet another action of the enemies of our Revolution. (…) These are actions that
have not stopped since we came to power, they are actions supported from the
United States. (…).”

“I would like to know
who is against these measures, who agree with the smuggling that is benefiting
the mafias, against the Venezuelan people. Whoever opposes these measures is an
anti-patriot,” added
Sanguino.

PSUV representative
Blanca Eekhout declared:
“We support the constitutional president on this and on all the actions he will
have to take for the defense of the fatherland. (…) Unlike other countries,
Venezuela is not ruled by bankers, the World Bank, or FEDECAMARAS [business union],
Venezuela is ruled by a worker that comes from the people, a people that have become
government and have come to power, and this is why we will side with the
president on the issue of the radical transformation of the State.”

Eekhout also
explained the basic elements of the Economic War: “These actions of war and
violence have as their main objective to break the people, to break the
political stability, and one of its main elements is to starve the people. This
is why I call the Popular Power to the struggle, together with the Head of
State, against the bourgeoisie that still persists in this country in
supporting the Economic War.”

“This Economic War is
accompanied by a Media War, which also has the support of actors who are
capable of generating a media matrix which impacts reality. They talk about scarcity,
and then the process of hoarding products begins. They talk about inflation,
and then a coordinated and organized process of speculation begins all over the
country,” added Eekhout.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

In his TV show today José
Vicente Rangel asked the new Foreign Minister and ex-Oil Minister, Rafael
Ramirez, about the “permanent thread to the revolution posed by powerful
internal and external enemies.”

Ramirez assured that
his main duty in his new post is to do whatever is necessary to “defended the sovereignty
[of the country] at any cost because we cannot allow the United States to
continue to openly intervene in the internal matters of the country”

“There are sector of
the extreme right in our country, linked by tutelage to North America, linked
to great economic interests, which continue to bet on violence. Our government
and our people have defeated all their attempts. President Nicolás Maduro has
not had so far a single day of truce. We have been under a permanent state of
siege, with violence on the streets, through the so called guarimbas, with the violence generated by the Economic War, and
they are permanently trying to generate a situation of chaos and distress in
our country. (...) We will activate the
support of the international community (…) to spread the truth to the world and
denounce the development, from the United States, of a species of chaos [in
Venezuela],” added the Minister.

The PSUV governor of
Táchira, José Vielma Mora, claims that “sectors of the right are attending conspiratorial
meetings with the aim of organizing guarimbas
[street barricades] for Monday 15,” when schools and universities are due to
begin classes.

“We are completely
prepared for these guarimbas. To the
organizers we warn that classes are about to start and they better not mess
with the people of Táchira and respect the children,” said
Vielma Mora.

He also declared that
these “sectors of the right” are financed by “smugglers that are being strongly
hit by the latest actions of the national and regional governments in its
struggle against extraction smuggling in the frontier.”

The latest of these measures
by the government against smuggling was revealed
yesterday by Defense Minister Carmen Meléndez: the establishment of the
toll free number 800-patriota for
people to “denounce smuggling” to the authorities.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

In a
meeting yesterday with business people, “of both public and private sectors,”
Nicolás Maduro had this to say about the latest inflation figures reported by
the Central Bank:

“We have been affected
by an inflation induced by the various mechanisms of an economic war, but we
can notice that inflation is now showing a tendency to decelerate and to go
down: In June it was 4.4%, which is still high, in July 4.1%, and in August it
closed in 3.9%, and with work, production, investment, and the combat of the
mechanisms of smuggling, we can maintain this tendency and begin the year 2015
with a positive tendency regarding inflation.”

Attorney General,
Luisa Ortega Díaz, believes that a recent
wave of gruesome crimes in Venezuela is “strange and unusual,” and is fuelled
by “by external attacks on the country.”

“Lately we have
observed with grave concern, the presence of a series of anti-values in our
society that are reflected on the strange and unusual violence of recent
crimes. Undoubtedly, I would put in the first place [among the causes of these
crimes] the attacks that have been waged against the Venezuelan State, not only
internationally but also at the national level. Venezuela has been the victim
of aggression especially at the international level. The attack [consists] on
claims that in Venezuela Human Rights are being violated, that there is no
access to education, culture, sports, housing, and food. This is an attack
aimed, not only at disqualifying the institutions, but also the inhabitants [of
Venezuela],” said
Ortega Díaz in a forum entitled “Prevention and Citizens Security.”

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The Venezuelan
Central Bank (BCV) has released its log delayed report on
inflation for the last three months. Inflation in June reached 4.4%, 4.1% in
July, and 3.9% in August. Inflation since January has reached 39%, and 63.4%
since this month last year.

Analyst Luis Vicente
Leon says the BCV is reporting reliable data, but presenting it in a biased
form: “The data from the BCV is adequate. The problem is the manipulation of
the dates of publication and the bias of the analysis.”(@luisvicenteleon)

This is what the BCV
has to say in its report:

“In short, the monthly
variation of the Consumer Price National Index slowed down in August for the
third consecutive month, thus reaching the lowest level observed since March,
when the results of the indicator began to be affected by the political conflict
induced by the economic war, which obstructed the normal behavior of productive
activities, and the distribution of essential goods demanded by the Venezuelan
population.”

In its previous
report issued in April, the BCV had already blamed inflation on the
Economic War. In that report the BCV subscribed the government’s explanation of
events and claimed that “…a radical group from the opposition, guided by its
urge to gain power by any means, without consideration for constitutional order
or the will of the people, did not doubt putting into action various
initiatives to generate political destabilization, promote political tensions,
produce a climate of chaotic political and of economic unease that would
stimulate social insurrection, and even provoke the intervention of their
foreign allies.”Update September 11: In this
article for Prodavinci, Luis Vicente León says that “errors,
omissions, and recalculations reasonably weaken the credibility of the [BCV]
data for the markets.”

Monday, September 8, 2014

In his weekly TV show
José Vicente Rangel said that two unidentified “businessmen in Panama” are financing
the Venezuelan opposition.

“Two businessmen, with a lot of economic resources, continue operating from Panama against the Venezuelan government,
[they do this] through opposition leaders who visit them constantly and receive
important economic resources,” Rangel said.

He also warned that
part of the opposition plans to go back to the streets to protest against recent
government’s announcements with “new and improved [mejoradas] guarimbas [street barricades].”

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Fort the president of
the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, conspiracies and “attacks by the Right”
play an unintended formative role for the People in the construction of
socialism, as they are “an opportunity to become superiors in the face of
difficulties.”

“It is a test to the character
of the People. We have proved ourselves time and again. Only through productive,
well organized, efficient, and unselfish labor, (…) will we continue to pave
the way for our Fatherland to become a power, an independent, socialist,
prosperous, and happy Venezuela,” declared
Cabello.

He also accused “the
Right” of “minimizing” the importance of the recent announcements made by President
Nicolás Maduro: “They were expecting neo-liberal measures. They were totally wrong.”

Thursday, September 4, 2014

This is a translation
of a note published
yesterday by the Agencia Venezolana de
Noticias (AVN) about the announcements made by President Maduro on
Tuesday night. The article is illustrative of the open bias common in Venezuela’s
public official media. It also gives a taste of the conspiracy theory narrative
that has by now become the official rhetoric of the government.

(Note that magnicidio is not mentioned among the
list of “systematic attacks” against the Revolution, despite being such an
important theory a month ago. I’m still betting on magnicidio making a comeback sometime soon.)

The Robust Revolution
is Unbreakable in the Face of the Unremitting Onslaught by the Right

Caracas, 3 September

The attacks of the
right against the Bolivarian Revolution, and against all that derives from it
(accomplishments, advances, social programs, initiatives in favor of the
people), have not rested in the last 15 years. The important coups which have
intensified since April 2013 to today are evidence of this.

The objective of this
minority sector of the population [the Right], that without moderation has
fiercely attacked the people and its rights which are today protected by the
State is, without a doubt, to recover its privileges affected by the fact that
now the wealth of the country is distributed with equality and justice.

Material, economic,
and human losses have resulted from an “Evil Plan” of the Venezuelan Right, as
was explained on Tuesday night from Miraflores Palace, Caracas, by the
President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro.

The Head of State –who
addressed the country on a radio and television cadena to announce the beginning of a new phase of the Bolivarian
Revolution in the service of the People –reminded the audience that the Right
has opened many fronts of attack in order to systematically and continuously harass
the People. In the last 17 month alone, these minority sectors have activated
five fronts, right after the physical departure of the comandante Hugo Chávez, that add up to the many other fronts activated
since the time the Venezuelan People took over power in December 1999 with
Chávez.

One of these five
fronts of aggression against the People became active after the elections of
April 2013, won by Maduro. Extremist acts left 11 Venezuelans dead and many
injured. This was a consequence of the loosing candidate Henrique Capriles
Radonski, in a clearly irresponsible act, calling his followers to set the
streets on fire and to not acknowledge the electoral results.

From that moment on,
the attacks have become systematic: War against the energy system [Guerra Eléctrica], daily psychological war,
economic war, smuggling, all of which are supported by national and
international media corporations. The best example of this was the guarimabas [street barricade protests]
which were part of the agenda of violence of the Right this last year.

In the face of these
attacks, the answer of the People and the government has been more work,
loyalty, and love. “The tests have been overcome,” said President Maduro, who emphasized
that, in the face of each of these attacks, the profoundly human character of a
conscious People prevailed.

The national leader
stressed that, despite these attacks that slow down the socialist policies of
the Bolivarian Government for dignifying the People, the government has managed
to advance forward with gigantic steps in favor of the wellbeing of the Venezuelan
population.

However Maduro
explained that the joint work of the People and the Government will continue
with strength, and now even with more vigor, faicing the economic war and the
boicot that has become more intense in these last years, and against which the
State has taken the definite decision to counter-attack.

For this reason the President
made an appeal to redouble the efforts: “We need to attack them all. We need to
overcome this test that life has put to us in the struggle against smuggling,
speculation, criminal economy, and we must come out of it stronger, with a
productive economy, with an articulated economy integrated in all its different
dimensions.”

Monday, September 1, 2014

A new
poll by IVAD (Instituto Venezolano de Análisis de Datos), published by
Eugenio G. Martínez (@puzkas), asked relevant questions about some of the
conspiracy theories held by the Venezuelan government.

The government claims
that the deaths during the opposition street protests at the beginning of the
year are the responsibility of the opposition leaders who called the protests. IVAD
asked:

Only 29.4% of
respondents answered that opposition leaders, “such as Leopoldo López and Maria
Corina Machado” were responsible for the deaths. But more than half (57%)
believe that “irregular groups”, the police, and the military, are responsible for
the deaths.

On the claims made by
the government that the opposition is planning to assassinate President Maduro
(Magnicidio), IVAD asked to respond
true or false to these statements:

The President of the
National Assembly and Vice-president of the Socialist Party (PSUV), Diosdado
Cabello, declared today that the opposition’s critiques of the announced
plan to control consumption through the use of fingerprint machines in markets
(captahuellas), is evidence that “they
will try to hit the people with starvation.”

According to Cabello
the opposition has systematically “underestimated” the claims by the government
that there is an Economic War against the country.

For Cabello the
reason the opposition critiques the government’s measures, it’s because these
measures benefit the people: “If the controls to prevent smuggling hurt the bourgeoisie,
it’s because they benefit the people. We need to go out to the streets and raise
the awareness of the people, this is not just any war; it’s a war to put an end
to the Bolivarian Revolution.”

He also made reference
to the opposition street protests at the beginning of the year. This is how the
press note published
by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias
informs of the declarations by Cabello. Note how the protests are framed (by
AVN, before the quote by Cabello) as terrorist acts by the extreme right to
promote a foreign intervention. Also interesting is the fact that, according to
AVN, Cabello considers “to promote the resignation of a Head of State,” a terrorist
crime. Here is the extract form AVN:

During the interview,
Cabello made reference to the attacks by terrorist groups linked to the extreme
right, during the first months of 2014, with the purpose of affecting the constitutional
order and of promoting a foreign intervention in the internal matters of
Venezuela.

“What do we do with
those who tried to burn preschools with children inside? Do we find logical, as
a country, as fathers of Venezuelan children, that someone could be capable of
burning a university, or a school with children inside, just because he want to
overthrow the president?” considered Cabello, who also noted that the
percentage of students that participated in the protests was very low.

Cabello pointed out
that no amnesty law is being considered for the citizens that participated in
these terrorist acts, because to promote the resignation of a head of state is
a crime.

“We cannot close our
eyes to this,” reaffirmed the president of the National Assembly.